


shrapnel

by orphan_account



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Character Death, Gen, no capitalization for some reason, non-canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2012-12-13
Packaged: 2017-11-21 00:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the death of ashley seaver comes about so suddenly, so calmly, that everyone almost forgets to scream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shrapnel

**Author's Note:**

> i truly wish i had an explanation. the best i can do is one day, i was bored and wanted to write something dark and stylistically strange, and... yep.

one day, everything falls apart. and it's not anything huge or dramatic, it's not an eruption of chaos or a bullet jumping from a gun or a crash and a bang leaving behind something irreparable. it's quiet and almost peaceful, and the carnage is so lovely that it feels like something beautiful has happened, something good. the break occurs with such tranquility, such quiet, that it's almost like going to sleep. the death of ashley seaver comes about so suddenly, so calmly, that everyone almost forgets to scream.  
  
it starts like this: ashley hops units, going from hotchner to swann to everywhere that will take her. she's not a bad agent, and every leader she has assures her, and still she feels like she's being regifted every time. she finds her place in seattle, gets her feet back onto solid ground. she has a niche, she clicks like she hasn't before. she's happy and loving and loved, and dear christ, that feels amazing. it feels like being home.  
  
the way ashley seaver dies, there's almost something noble about it. almost something that makes it okay to look down and see the spike through her spine, almost something that causes smiles before tears. the way ashley seaver dies isn't with a bang and not even a whimper. there is quiet dignity in her death, a silent statement that  _this is how i want to die, this is how i'm choosing to leave this world._  it's an accident and there's no doubt that she didn't mean to die, but that doesn't mean she didn't choose it.  
  
there's a victim and he's going to die, and ashley is the one who sees him. ashley is the one who sees the ceiling caving in and the beams from the roof falling and one is heading for him and she's the one who leaps in the way. she's the one who saves the victim, and she's the one who keeps another person, because there's a serial bomber in seattle and her first team is there, she's with the profilers again. they're going to be so proud of her, so proud that she saved one person, they'll be pr  
  
and when jemima christopher who leads the seattle field office sees it she doesn't believe it. because their bomber is not cowering on the floor, and the best agent she's had in years does not have a piece of a wood through her back. this is backwards, it's all horribly backwards, because if she's seeing this right then ashley seaver saved someone who has killed dozens of people.  
  
ashley is a noble person, a strong person, a person who simply isn't afraid to make a choice. and maybe they understand, somehow, that she wanted to die a savior. maybe she thought she would be dead either way, and she would rather die on her terms. maybe she just wanted something to hold her head high and say that she did this and she's damn proud to say it.  
  
jemima sees the way that ashley died and she sees everything exactly the way it should be. she sees the choice and the courage and the beauty, the disgustingly delicate way that her back curves around the shrapnel, that the blood dances from her mouth in tiny rivulets that paint her neck red. she sees that in death ashley seaver is the same as in life.  
  
and when she starts screaming she knows that she won't be able to stop, not for a long time, not until she can wipe away the image of the body in front of her.  
  
the first person to find them, the bomber and the broken and the beautiful, is not from seattle. ashley had known him, of course, they had been teammates. she'd cared about him and he cares about her. she can see it in the way his posture collapses at the sight of them, the way he starts rattling off miranda rights to the bomber so quickly that jemima's head spins. he did that a lot, she noticed, all of the talking and facts and the way he just seemed to remember every single little thing. she wonders if he knows what to do with this memory.  
  
they're in a group of warehouses, all clustered together, two agents to a warehouse. this one had been his hideout, and she thinks this agent, the one with the long hair, he'd been nearby, right next to them. of course he'd be first. there's another woman from his team who comes just after him, dark hair flying behind her, and she stops and whispers something that looks like _oh, god,_  before she's yelling into her radio that she needs an ambulance and which warehouse they're in and ashley's hurt. jemima wonders why she can't say dead.  
  
everyone seems to appear immediately after that, and they all stop just short of ashley's body, like they're revering the sight, like they're afraid to desecrate the desecrated. people cry and throw up and some of them don't know how to react, just stare with wide glassy eyes. there's a profiler, one who's gray and grizzled, who's the first one to get close enough to touch the body. he holds her hand and he cries and everyone looks scared to see him cry, scared that it's so bad. the bomber is long gone, the one with the hair took him away and came back, and he's the next one. he brushes ashley's hair away from her eyes and runs his fingers through it over and over, untangling it, wiping out the blood.  
  
jemima sits down next to him, at her side, and she cries, too. cries for nobility and beauty and the terrible sight that she saw when the smoke cleared. cries for one of the best people she's ever known and one of the darkest days she's ever seen.  
  
three weeks later, jemima christopher resigns from the head of the seattle field office and from the bureau itself. she'd been the one to tell the family and friends. ashley had listed a friend of hers as her next of kin, and after telling them she'd told her mother, and later her father. they let him go to the funeral, with heavy escort. jemima had wanted to hate him until she saw him cry, and she realized she didn't know how.  
  
she visits the grave in north dakota so often that she just rents an apartment there and moves without a word. she talks to ashley and tells her about the latest case one of her many former teams solved and apologizes. she says she's sorry a lot. hopefully ashley will forgive her, she hated useless apologies.  
  
the way ashley seaver died was quiet. the explosion had happened and the ceiling fell with no noise, none at all. and her body arced around the wood through her back, and she'd been smiling. beatific in her death. it was not okay and it will never be okay, but jemima thinks that maybe ashley's peace brings it all to being one step closer to okay.


End file.
